


wherever you're heading can you let me know

by hihoplastic



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic/pseuds/hihoplastic
Summary: He finds her mostly by chance, but he can’t deny he’d been looking for her. Keeping an eye out, hovering around major archaeological sites on the off chance she’d be there. He isn’t exactly sure why—he’s avoided her as much as possible, after the last time, after the Library. Hasn’t wanted to face her, face his future.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song
Comments: 13
Kudos: 97





	wherever you're heading can you let me know

**Author's Note:**

> -title from 'farewell' by rhianna  
> \- for @sincerely-a-fan on tumblr, who requested "River/10"  
> 

He finds her mostly by chance, but he can’t deny he’d been looking for her. Keeping an eye out, hovering around major archaeological sites on the off chance she’d be there. He isn’t exactly sure why—he’s avoided her as much as possible, after the last time, after the Library. Hasn’t wanted to face her, face his future. But he’s dying now, and he can’t quite stomach the idea of a farewell tour that doesn’t include her. He tells himself it won’t help, but he thinks of the way she’d looked at him, with so much affection, so much foreknowledge, and with the regeneration energy burning under his skin, he wants the reassurance—that there’s hope in the future. Hope for who he becomes. 

He finds her on Atalan VII, digging in the dirt, a pith hat on her head under the three suns, ordering a bunch of people around. He recognizes Anita, and his hearts pinch. 

She doesn’t notice him right away, and he watches her, the way she handles a broken cup, the way she explains how to clean it properly, how to store it and protect it. He’s never liked archaeology, never saw the use in it, but there’s something about the way River explains the item’s history, its significance to a people long dead, that makes him wonder if there’s something to it after all. If he should be a bit more interested in preserving history, rather than making it. 

When she’s done, and the team disperses, following her commands, she looks up, looks right at him, and he realizes she’s known he was there all along, standing not too far away, observing. She looks at him, and smiles, a bit unsure as she makes her way closer, stopping in front of him, the suns dipping below the horizon slowly, one at a time, casting a glow around her hair. 

“Hello, sweetie,” she greets him, but there’s no teasing smirk this time, just a gentle affection that makes his hearts beat a bit faster. 

“River,” he returns, uncertain what to say, now that he’s here. 

She tilts her head and looks at him for a moment, really, properly looks at him, and it’s unnerving, the way she seems to see everything, and her eyes soften. 

“I’d ask where we are, but I think I already know.” When he doesn’t reply, his mouth too dry, she gestures toward her tent. “Drink?” 

He nods, and follows her inside, where it’s marginally cooler. There’s a fan and a small cot and it’s not at all what he was expecting. Somehow, he thought it’d be something elaborate, something out of place for the time. But there’s only a small bed and a table with a host of tools, a few boxes for storing items and a cooler, several books, a suitcase. He doesn’t like it, being wrong about her, and he feels unsettled until she rifles around in her bag and pulls out a bottle of ridiculously expensive scotch and two tumblers with a smirk. 

“Some creature comforts are necessary,” she says, and pours them both a drink. The alcohol burns his throat, but it’s a welcome one, and he takes another sip. River takes a drink as well, then sets it on the table, still holding the glass. “So. How long have you got?” 

He blinks, surprised. “How did you know?” 

She shrugs. “Let’s call it instinct,” she says, and he knows it isn’t that, but he doesn’t want to hear her say _spoilers_. 

“A few days,” he says. “Maybe.” 

She tuts. “You shouldn’t hold it back so long. The longer you wait, the worse it’ll be.” 

He knows that, doesn’t know how she knows that, and feels irritation coil in his stomach. “I’ll wait as long as I like.” 

But River merely shrugs. “Suit yourself.” 

Neither of them say anything for a long while. River takes another drink. The Doctor looks around the tent, anywhere but at her. 

“So what’s he like?” he asks finally, unable to keep the derision out of his voice. “The new me.” 

River smiles faintly. “Clever,” he says. “Mad. Wonderful. Terrible dress sense, so no change there.” 

“Oi!” 

She smirks briefly, then sobers, looking at him gently. “You’re you,” she says. “The face doesn’t change that.” 

He glares down at his drink. “That’s not what it feels like.” 

“No,” she agrees. “I imagine it doesn’t.” 

“You can’t begin to imagine what it’s like,” he says tartly, aware she doesn’t deserve his anger, but he doesn't know where else to put it, how to keep carrying it. “Every cell in my body dies and some new person takes my place, and he doesn’t deserve—”

River narrows her eyes, but she doesn’t raise her voice. “Careful,” she says. “I’m quite fond of your next face.” 

The Doctor stills, can’t help but ask, “And this one?” 

“Fond of it, too,” she says, “When you aren’t being an arrogant sod.” He glares at her, but River seems unfazed, just sighs and says, “I don’t play favorites.” 

“Most people do.” 

“I’m not most people.” 

He flinches at the reminder of the Library, the words echoing, and takes another drink, too much this time, and coughs. River smirks, and he glares, and it seems to be a routine they fall into when he asks, 

“Who are you, then?” 

“You know I can’t tell you that.” 

“I’m dying.” 

She shrugs. “Death is relative.” 

“No it isn’t.”

“It is for you.” 

“I won’t exist anymore, how is that—”

“Are you always this maudlin before a regeneration?” she asks, tilting her head. 

He snorts. “I think I’m entitled.” 

River glares, folding her arms across her chest. “When most people die, they die permanently. They don’t get to come back, they don’t get to keep on living, keep breathing, keep traveling and laughing and loving. You do. Don’t you dare take that for granted.” 

He stares at her, taken aback for a moment, and he wants to be angry—is angry, if he thinks about it, this woman, who knows him too much, too well, telling him all the things he doesn’t want to hear right now. Telling him things she shouldn’t know, shouldn’t say like she _understands_ because she can’t. He’s the last one, all gone, all dead, and it feels like he’s dying, too, and he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t want to be somebody else. He wants to tell her that, want to rail at her, but what comes out is almost plaintive, 

“He won’t be me.” 

River softens instantly, her arms dropping as she steps closer, and slowly, carefully, places her hand on his sternum, her fingers at the base of his throat. 

“Yes, he will,” she says. “You’re the same man, always. Yes, your tastes may change, and maybe for once, you’ll actually like pears.” She smiles gently. “But who you are here,” she moves her hand over his hearts, and he feels them pick up. “That’s permanent. That’s the miracle.” 

It doesn’t feel like a miracle. Doesn’t feel like anything other than erasing who he is, who he’s come to be, and he knows, knows that she’s right—that he’ll be the same person, regardless. But with the constant ache in his body and regeneration energy under his skin, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels final. Crushing. 

River stares at him, and seems to know, because she reaches out, tentatively, and cups his cheek in her palm. Her touch is cool and soft and so soothing, and it’s been so long since someone has touched him like that, with a kind of delicacy he isn’t used to, that is so antithetical to the pain in his limbs, and he can’t help but lean into her touch. 

“Is it worth it?” he asks, his voice hoarse. The question has been looming in the back of his head for weeks, if it’s even the right choice, to regenerate again. To be a new man. Or if he should just follow in the Master’s footsteps, and let the curtain close. 

River brushes her thumb over his skin, and he shudders. 

“You always thought so.” 

He sighs, her answer not quite what he was looking for, and River seems to know, and rests her free hand on his chest again; he instinctively covers her hand with his. 

“I can’t tell you much,” she says, “But I can tell you this: you are, and will be, amazing.” 

She says it like a secret, like a promise; like it means something more than the words, and he wants to know. Wants to find out what’s in her eyes, why she looks at him the way she does. He wants to know, for the first time, what’s coming for him, with her. With this woman who touches him like her own personal miracle. 

He breathes out shakily, looks at her, has the sudden urge to kiss her, and barely manages to restrain himself. He somehow doubts that she’d mind, but he isn’t quite ready for that, and knows that it would mean something different to her than it would to him. Something greater. 

After everything she’s done, he won’t do that to her. 

Instead, he nods, looks at her so she knows he hears her. River smiles, and he feels the loss keenly when she steps away. She picks up her drink again, takes a sip, and her expression shifts slightly, into something knowing, a slight smirk at the corner of her mouth. 

“The caves we’re investigating have been sealed up for over four thousand years. There’s a warning carved into the wall, of a great monster that steals your thoughts and eats them. Except the indigenous population uses pictographs to communicate, and the writing is less than a week old.” She arches an eyebrow. “Curious?” 

He hesitates, mind already spinning with possibilities. He shouldn’t. He should go back to the TARDIS, let the regeneration energy take its course, move on. 

“Seven people have gone missing in the past two days,” she adds. 

Her face says “gotcha” and he almost laughs, shakes his head, and gestures dramatically toward the front of the tent.

“Well in that case,” he says. “ _Allons-y._ ”


End file.
